Because of the limited size of my brew kettle, I plan to make a 7.5 gal. concentrated batch of ale and dilute it down to the gravity I want by adding pre-boil/chilled water to come up with a 15gal. batch. I understand that I need to consider a drop in my efficiency and hop utilization but other than that, are there elements of the quality of a beer made this way that I'm overlooking? Thanks in Advance. mark www.backyardbrewer.blogspot.comwww.thebackyardbrewer.com

Reducing the volume by half is a rather severe concentration factor; for example, you would have to brew 1.096 wort to arrive at an O.G. of 1.048. Yes, I would expect the efficiency to drop by about 15-20 percent from that for a lower gravity wort, so you will have to increase the amount of grain accordingly and consider whether you have enough mash tun capacity. Secondly, the hop utilization will also decrease; I would expect to use about 25 percent more bittering hops than called for in a normal gravity recipe, but only a slight increase in late addition hops.

I would guess that it will take a couple of test batches before you achieve the results you are looking for. There are those who maintain that a full-wort boil produces beer with better flavor. Some of the large megabreweries produce concentrated wort, but they have done a lot of experimentation and recipe testing before they do this on a production basis. Also, the concentration is more like 15-30 percent.

My original grain bill was 11 lbs of 2 row with about 80% eff. and added 2 lbs. honey for an o.g. of 1.052 in 7.5 gal.

I used 1/2oz Simcoe @ 16% for 20 ibu's

Since I am only using 22 lbs. for a double batch, I figured I'd still get a pretty good eff. but will make up the diff. with honey if needed. I used 1.5 oz. Simcoe for this batch expecting a 22% util. in a gravity of 1.086 in 7.5 gal. which puts me at about 55 ibu's At flame out I will add 4 lbs. honey and dilute the batch 50% with pre-boiled water. This should get me down to 25ibu's in an o.g. of 1.052 more or less.